Various motion devices having a moving viewer platform and a motion picture or video display have been developed for use in various amusement applications and flight simulators. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,789,680; 4,642,945; and 4,752,065. For greater control over the viewer environment, some such devices have the viewer enclosed in a capsule. The motion picture or video display may or may not be within the viewer capsule. U.S. Pat. No. 4,251,140 shows a housing containing viewer seats and a film projector, as well as a spherical screen. The amusement system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,995,603 has an egg-shaped riding capsule member which is rotatable and tiltable, and which allows the passenger to view a fixed video screen placed external to the capsule.
The flight simulator disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,135,057 has a spherical capsule mounted on a fluid bearing, which uses three circular race assemblies fixed to the inner surface of the wall of the sphere to effect roll, pitch and yaw movements. Power means mounted to the inner surface of the sphere contact the races to impart rotational movement directly to the races and indirectly move the sphere. The spatial disorientation trainer-flight simulator shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,710,128 also has a capsule, which is mounted in an external gimbal framework for independent rotation about pitch, roll and yaw axes. Two amusement rides currently available (Chameleon, developed by Chameleon Technologies and R360, developed by Sega Inc.) utilize gimbaled assemblies similar to these designs to hold audience compartments.
Despite these and other prior art amusement ride and entertainment structures, there remains a need for an amusement ride device that has an effective means of imparting motion to the audience compartment and improved ability to coordinate such motion with motion picture, computer-generated or video images presented to the audience members.